So, I know that BoundlessCrafting has what some of the skills do (related to crafting, anyway) but I thought it would be useful to compile a list of what we’ve tested and what does what on here so far, seeing as there are many skills that are less-than-descriptive.
I have shamelessly ripped descriptions of what crafting skills do from the BoundlessCrafting site, so all credit goes to the creator, maintainer, and Fearless Leader, Stretchious.
For those skills that completely describe what they do, I see no reason to add them to this post at the present time. The same goes for those skills with the “placeholder” tag that do nothing yet.
Unless otherwise noted, stattribute values per-rank are additive to all values of other stattribute ranks modifying the same value. To get the total value add the values of all acquired ranks together. (Appreciated, @cor-karolis !)
If anyone knows any secrets or tricks about what skills do, please post them and I’ll add them to the OP. ^^
Core:
Basic Crafting Recipes: Unlocks Hand Crafting recipes for all wooden Timbers, Sticks, Tools and Torches(basic). Unlocks recipes on the Crafting Table for all Stones, for all wooden and stone Slabs, Steps, Walls, Tools and Weapons, for Stone Fire Pit and Crucible, and for the Workbench. Unlocks recipes in the Furnace for all metal bars and all cooked foods. Unlocks the recipe in the Workbench for Warp Crystal ammunition. Unlocks recipes in the Mixer for all metal alloys.
Sprint: Unlocks the ability to double-tap and hold in a direction or use Shift + hold in a direction to sprint at 166.66% of normal running speed.
Attributes:
Vitality: Increases you health by 60 per point, so by 600 per rank in Vitality. Helps versus creatures and falling damage, but lava does 30% of your maximum HP as damage per tick, so no help there.
Power: Increases damage done by 0.5% per point, or 5% per rank, this applies both to blocks when using tools, and to enemies when using weapons.
Control: Affects distance at which you can build (+1m per rank) and distance you can throw (bombs? +11% per rank). Has no effect on Slingbow projectiles or Grapple claws.
Agility: Increases run speed by 0.3m/s and therefore sprint speed by 0.5m/s, as well as increasing critical rate by +2% per rank. (Critical rate only applies to weapons and tools that can crit, such as the gold hammer? Uncertain.)
Item Crafting:
Common Machine Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Compactors, Extractors, and Refiners at the Workbench. Unlocks the Engine Recipes tree.
Advanced Machine Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Mixers, Spark Cores, and Spark Cord at the Workbench.
Common Engine Recipes: Unlocks absolutely nothing at the moment.
Advanced Engine Recipes: Same as above.
Common Prop Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Doors, Storage Blocks and Shelves, Locks, Plinths and Shop Stands, and Torches(intermediate).
Advanced Prop Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Trapdoors, Lanterns, Gleam Lanterns, Request Baskets, and Torches(gem).
Common Item Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Fiber, Bone and Fossil Extracts, for Cloth, Glue and Nails, and for Warp Conduits.
Advanced Item Recipes: Unlocks the recipes for Cogs, Trampolines, Slides, Ink Extract, Healing Brews, Oort Shards, Portal Conduits, and Slingbow Extra Damage Crystals.
Common Block Recipes: Unlocks recipes for all Refined Rocks, and their Slabs, Steps and Walls, for all Compacted Coals, for all Compacted and Refined metals and alloys and their slabs, steps and walls, and for all Machined metals and alloys.
Advanced Block Recipes: Unlocks recipes for all compacted gems, Rift, Dark Matter, Blink, Oort Stone, and their respective Slabs, Steps and Walls, and for all Refined Gems, Rift, Dark Matter, Blink and Oort Stone.
Expert Block Recipes: Absolutely nothing at the moment.
Tool Mastery:
All masteries appear to make their associated tools last longer/more uses.
Hammer Mastery: Seems to lower the amount of hits needed to harvest coals, metals and gems, or perhaps allows Power to apply more fully to them?
Shovel/Axe/Chisel Mastery: Unknown.
Grapple Mastery: Makes grapple-claws fly much faster, resulting in (usually) increased range and easier aiming.
Exploration:
Inventory Space: Increases inventory space by four slots per rank, from 16 slots up to a max of 32. (Thanks @Astellus )
Combat Mastery:
Lance/Bomb Mastery: Unknown/not yet implemented.
Slingbow Mastery: Makes Slingbows do more damage. Better materials can gain more from high mastery while lesser materials “cap out” at lower mastery ranks, with further ranks doing nothing for them.
Slingbow Rapid Fire: Increases fire rate by 20% with slingbows made of materials capable of Rapid Fire.
Charge Slingbow: Allows charged shots with slingbows made of charge-capable materials for up to ?% (Varies by slingbow material) extra damage per shot.
Equipment Crafting:
Common Tool Recipes: Unlocks recipes for Copper, Iron and Silver and Gold Alloy Hammers, Shovels and Axes.
Advanced Tool Recipes: Same as above except for with Titanium Alloy and all gem materials.
Expert Tool Recipes: Absolutely nothing at the moment.
Common Weapon Recipes: Unlocks recipes for (Copper, Iron and Gold and Silver Alloy Slingbows? Possibly Lances and Bombs of these materials in the future? BoundlessCrafting says they unlock nothing ATM but I think it’s wrong…)
Advanced Weapon Recipes: Same as above except for with Titanium Alloy and all gem materials.
Expert Weapon Recipes: Absolutely nothing at the moment.
Common Technology Recipes: Unlocks recipes for Copper, Iron and Silver and Gold Alloy Chisels, Spanners, and Grappling Hooks.
Advanced Technology Recipes: Same as above except for with Titanium Alloy and all gem materials.
Expert Technology Recipes: Absolutely nothing at the moment.
Common Decorative Recipes: Unlocks recipes for all Brick Mixtures and Bricks and their corresponding Slabs, Steps and Walls, for all Decorative Rocks, for Glass, and for Dark Glass Slabs, Steps and Walls.
Bulk Craft: Unlocks the ability to craft in large quantities, reducing the ratio of resources required.
Mass Craft: Unlocks the ability to craft in very large quantities, further reducing the ratio of resources required.
Abilities:
Jump Height Bonus 1: Increases the jump height by 1m, as well as increasing the jump duration. Unlocks the Air Jump tree.
Jump Height Bonus 2: Increases the jump height by a further 0.5m.
Air Jump 1: Gives the ability to jump a further 0.5m (for a bit of extra duration as well) while already in the process of jumping.
Air Jump 2: Adds 0.5m (and a bit of extra potential duration) to the Air Jump.
Climb: Adds the ability to vault up over/onto blocks that are struck at waist-height or lower while moving upwards (at all, whether you jumped or not. Buyer beware). Adds the ability to vault much higher over/onto blocks when striking below a ledge while using a grapple. Counts the lower edge of a slanted block as the upper edge for purposes of climbing. Extraordinarily useful for climbing steep mountains. Has potentially VERY disruptive effects on grappling in certain situations.
Antagonize: Unknown? Assumed to increase “threat level”, resulting in increased mob aggro, aggro range, spawns, or some combination of the three.
Shadow Effect: Unknown? Assumed to be the equal and opposite of Antagonize. Lowered mob aggro, aggro range, spawns, or some combination of the three.
Survival
Item Durability Bonus: Decreases the decay rate of Items (due to use) by 10% per rank, for a total of 50% reduction at Rank V. This would result in tools lasting twice as long against normal wear and tear as they do with no ranks in this stattribute.
Death Penalty Reduction: Reduces the penalty to item durability due to dying. After @cor-karolis ’ testing, this is additive in nature, resulting in a 100% reduction at max rank. Handy!
Revive (R.R.A.R.R): Does this even do anything yet?
Atmosphere
(TBD)
Rage and Focus
(TBD)
Edit: In particular, I’d love to figure out what skill increases slingbow range towards what it used to be. Slingbow mastery which I expected to do so has had no visible effect on in with about 4 ranks, so I cleansed 3 and dumped them into Control thinking "maybe the “sling"bow projectiles count as thrown, since technically they are, just not by me?”. Nope, no visible difference.
Edit 2: Turns out that no skills increase slingbow range. Range is an aspect of material used, with Diamond and Sapphire having the best range (40m). Thanks @Jiivita !
Edit 3: Jumps got heavily nerfed in both height and duration, yay! I think it’s about half as much on both… Air jumps do almost nothing now.